Determine fingering for music pieces / melodies learned by ear

[dak]

No instrument is easy to play to any standard,

The expected standard is what someone will be doing after years of practice. For pretty much any instrument. Before that is a learning and pain curve for the players and innocent bystanders. Different instruments have different pain curves, and different targets. Few people expect polyphony from violin players even though violins are successors of viols and notwithstanding Bach having written four-part fugues to play on the violin solo. Accordion gets to a standard expectation of melody and accompaniment for a number of music styles pretty fast. Piano is similar in that respect. I'd argue that the stuff you can cover well with standard bass tends to be easier on accordion than on piano.

How long does it take you to do a "typical showpiece" on an instrument? In the end: who cares? We play what we love to play, and that's the only way to make headway in the end.

 

[JerryPH]

How long does it take you to do a "typical showpiece" on an instrument? In the end: who cares? We play what we love to play, and that's the only way to make headway in the end.

Depends, some songs its 1-2 hours, others I may work on for several weeks. Who cares? The only person that counts... for my time on my instrument... me. I would guess for your instrument, it would be you. That is the only people it should matter for, IMHO!

 

[EuroFolker]

If it was easy to play the accordion everyone would be doing it

Deep

 

[lestermann]

As far as I know, the great Erroll Garner never took lessons and never learned how to read, so the tenet that in order to play well one cannot learn by ear is not an absolute truth. And his finger agility could not be better.

 

[Jaime_Dergut]

Just wondering about your guys' workflow for learning a tune "by ear" and playing it on the accordion.

Let's say you can't find any notation for it, let alone transcription for accordion.

Maybe running it through chord detection software is useful.

But how do you determine the treble side fingering?

Figure out the scales in use and then apply the most common fingering for those scales?

Is it mostly a "comes with experience" thing?

Learn from printed music with fingering and a teacher that helps you figure out your own fingering.

Also, make use of all your fingers, especially your pinky.

Once you have learned a lot of fingering from others, you will be ready to come out with your own, at your convenience.

It takes time, and reading printed music is highly recommended.

 

[Ffingers]

Learn from printed music with fingering and a teacher that helps you figure out your own fingering.

Also, make use of all your fingers, especially your pinky.

Once you have learned a lot of fingering from others, you will be ready to come out with your own, at your convenience.

It takes time, and reading printed music is highly recommended.

Much will depend on the shape of your hands and the comparative lengths of the fingers.

As for printed music, yes, learn to read it but remember that what is written does not always represent the original music - which is of particular importance in traditional tunes handed down over generations, and other music for which we do not have original sound recording such as those of the early, classical and baroque periods.

Some of the repetoire of 'traditional' folk music is very questionable; "best guess" or simply "how I remembered it".

 

[lestermann]

Much will depend on the shape of your hands and the comparative lengths of the fingers.

As for printed music, yes, learn to read it but remember that what is written does not always represent the original music - which is of particular importance in traditional tunes handed down over generations, and other music for which we do not have original sound recording such as those of the early, classical and baroque periods.

Some of the repetoire of 'traditional' folk music is very questionable; "best guess" or simply "how I remembered it".

Indeed what is written does not always represent the original music. Also, when the sheet music comes with fingering instructions on top of notes, that also does not represent in any way "the correct" way to use your fingers. My piano teacher always used to show me different versions of the same pieces, each version with different fingerings suggested, and told me to pick the one that I personally felt more comfortable with.

 

[Zevy]

I just came home from a lesson with Eddie Monteiro. We worked out many of the fingerings in the pieces that I am currently studying. Our teacher, Charles Nunzio, used to say that if you had an original idea for fingerings (that was different than his) and you can play it through ten times that way, then you can use it! There is no better way than working on it with a master accordionist. I remember Mr. Nunzio wracking his head to formulate the proper technique for some of the music.
The only thing that is almost as good as a real, live teacher is good, well annotated music. IMHO I would consider any music published by Charles Nunzio to have good fingerings. Many pieces by Frosini were also worked on by Mr. Nunzio. That's because Frosini didn't play the PA.

 

[colinm]

I just came home from a lesson with Eddie Monteiro. We worked out many of the fingerings in the pieces that I am currently studying. Our teacher, Charles Nunzio, used to say that if you had an original idea for fingerings (that was different than his) and you can play it through ten times that way, then you can use it! There is no better way than working on it with a master accordionist. I remember Mr. Nunzio wracking his head to formulate the proper technique for some of the music.
The only thing that is almost as good as a real, live teacher is good, well annotated music. IMHO I would consider any music published by Charles Nunzio to have good fingerings. Many pieces by Frosini were also worked on by Mr. Nunzio. That's because Frosini didn't play the PA.

Now that I know Mr Nunzio had to wrack his brains over fingering , I feel much better about my efforts.

 

[Zevy]

Now that I know Mr Nunzio had to wrack his brains over fingering , I feel much better about my efforts.

100%. And it’s all worth it.
I make my students crazy about fingering.